Scars.
We all have them, unless we are very young.
We hide them beneath smiles. We cover them with affirmations that all is well, flourishing in fact. But they manage to show through the cracks where we were once broken.
Everyone tries to hide them, deny them, disguise them. We feel they are a sign of weakness. We fear they will serve others to judge us and perhaps hurt us.
Where do they come from?
Some of us learn early on in life that those we should be able to trust, those that first teach us about life and love, discourage us from actually being our true selves. We try again and again to show the depths of our soul and we come up against a barrier.
TheGirlYouShouldBe (but will never be).
You never forget your first scar.
When you get told to lower your voice, not because you’re actually shouting, but because what you’re saying is upsetting someone who’s listening. They do not want to be reminded of a different point of view. The freshness and innocence of a mind and heart that are not as yet jaded by hypocrisy or cynicism is like kryptonite to them. You feel inadequate.
When you are carelessly compared to someone and end up losing in the comparison because you are not quite ‘enough’. You feel insecure.
You constantly hear that no one loves you more than your parents. Yet you constantly feel you are asked to pay a pound of flesh for the love you receive. You are constantly required to pipe down, toughen up, obey and not whine. You are told that your perceptions and ideas, however well thought out they may seem to you, are flawed beyond repair. You end up thinking that you are also flawed beyond repair.
On the good days, you set out to fix yourself, fix those strange views and adapt your weird self into the mold they’ve prepared for you, and which happens to be just like the one they have for everyone else. It doesn’t fit you well. It is too loose in some places and too tight in others. You don’t like it, but you think that if you try hard enough, it will end up fitting you and then people will love you and not just tolerate you.
On the bad days, you just want to hide, or better still, leave. You wish you could just up and leave, hit the road and not look back. You look at yourself in the mirror and wonder why. Why is it others can’t see you? And why can’t you see what others see in you?
Until after decades of trying you realize that it was all in vain. You do or say one thing that doesn’t quite fill the need for uniformity of the crowd, and you’re back at square one. Then you think that it’s your fault, even though your logic reminds you that it can’t really be so.
Next step?
Realize that the World Expert on your life is you. Realize that other people’s approval doesn’t depend on you, but on them. You can be saint by any standard and still have people dislike you, or outright hate you. Realize that all you need to do is forgive. Forgive people for being insensitive. They are their own worst enemy. Forgive yourself. You are your best friend. Forgive and move on.
Forgive…but don’t forget. Never forget that your worth is not measured by the value assigned to you by any other person. Never give anyone the power to put a price on you.